Confessed killer and cannibal Albert Fentress will be in court Wednesday to ask a judge to release him from a locked mental ward at an Orange County psychiatric hospital.

Fentress, a former Poughkepsie Middle School history teacher, has been confined to mental institutions since 1980, when he was judged to be legally insane at the time he sexually mutilated Town of Poughkeepsie teenager Paul Masters, then killed him and ate some of the body parts.

The crime took place Aug. 20, 1979 at Fentress' home on Grand Avenue in the City of Poughkeepsie.

Under state law, Fentress may petition the court every two years to be released from custody. On Monday, state Supreme Court Judge James Catterson scheduled the hearing to begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Suffolk County Courthouse annex.

Fentress is being represented by attorneys from Mental Hygiene Legal Services. His petition for release is being opposed by assistant state Attorney General Denis McElligott and Dutchess County Senior Assistant District Attorney Edward McLoughlin.

McElligott said Monday he planned to call two psychiatrists, Dr. Khin Myo and Dr. Muthaiah Chandrsekhara, to testify at Wednesday's hearing. Chandrsekhara is chairman of forensic services at Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Center in Orange County, where Fentress has been held since 2002. Myo was hired by the state Office of Mental hyginee to evaluate Fentress's current mental condition.

McElligott said he expected both doctors to testify Fentress is not ready to be moved from the secure Orange County facility.

In 2002, Catterson ordered Fentress transferred from King's Park Psychiatric Center in Suffolk County, where he had lived for many years, to a locked ward at Mid-Hudson. The judge did so after two witnesses testified Fentress had molested them shortly before he killed Masters. Fentress had never acknowledged the incidents during his more than 20 years of therapy.

I have a hard time imagining how anyone could conscientiously defend this guys claim to "better accommodations". It boggles the mind.

I agree with Larry, let him have his "quick trip" there and back again, but no more.

Lots of love,

John

_________________________“Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting ‘Holy ____…! What a ride!’” ~Hunter S. Thompson

You are the one who made it all happen, otherwise he may still be at large.

Triggers.****

The Case of Albert Fentress

Albert Fentress was born in 1941, the oldest of three children, in Brooklyn. His father was a tough man who believed in physical punishment but Fentress had an overall normal childhood.

At 12, he moved with his family to Long Island where he continued in school until becoming one of the top 10 in his high school graduating class. Eventually, Fentress earned his master’s degrees in history and education and became one of the best reputed high school teachers in the area where he lived. He lived alone and was quite a meticulous housekeeper. He appreciated the finer things, as he drove a Cadillac and wore a Rolex watch. He owned a very valuable stamp collection. Although beloved as a teacher, Fentress did not have a romantic relationship or many friends. He actually once described the most depressing point of his life as when his Cadillac was in the shop being fixed. When he was 35, his house was robbed and his stamp collection stolen. Sure that a particular high school student had done it, Fentress lobbied to have him arrested. The student’s school friends found out and soon Fentress’ home was a target for vandalism and harassment. He obtained a gun permit.

After his arrest, Fentress told interviewers that he wrote in his journal a series of events that came to him while he was in a dissociative state and upon waking from it, was so horrified by what he’d written, like it was that of another person, that he burned it immediately. It was this series of events, however, that later took place at Fentress’ home.

While some juveniles were running from police officers in his neighborhood, Fentress invited one boy in and won his trust with a beer. He then gained leverage on the boy, tied him up and tried to sexually assault him. When Fentress was unsuccessful, he castrated the boy, cooked and ate his genitals, then shot him and dragged him upstairs. It is then he claims, that he woke up from what he said was another dissociative fugue. He called a friend, who in turn called the police and Fentress was taken into custody.

Years passed after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and by the 1990s he was a favorite patient in the New York state forensic facility. He had developed great computer skills and was teaching the other patients and staff. He’d suffered no more episodes. Officially his diagnosis was narcissistic personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and dissociative fugues. The only time that he received antipsychotic medication was in jail prior to his trial.

Because he was an outstanding patient, his treatment team, several psychologists, and several outside consultants suggested he be granted unaccompanied passes into the community. He was already out and about with an escort.

In 1997, John Oldham, M.D., Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences chairman and professor, who at the time worked in New York, was asked by the state to review Fentress’ records and provide an opinion. Oldham was concerned that Fentress was not on medication and was unsure what could trigger another psychotic episode, “If he couldn’t handle kids slashing his screens and burning his lawn, then how could he possibly handle the likely public reaction to his release, after he'd been demonized in the media as 'New York's own Hannibal Lector?'”

Fentress then exercised his right to a jury trial for release. Oldham testified as an expert witness of the state, interestingly, in disagreement with recommendations of others within the same state agency. He believed Fentress suffered from malignant narcissism, was not a candidate for release and was also still potentially dangerous. In a retrial in the appellate court, the state called a witness who testified that when he was a 10-year-old neighbor of Fentress’, he was sexually molested on numerous occasions by Fentress. Fentress had not revealed this information before.

With the last chapter yet written, Fentress remains in the psychiatric state inpatient facility today.

_________________________
Whoever stole the Sun, put it back and we'll drop all the charges!

_________________________“Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting ‘Holy ____…! What a ride!’” ~Hunter S. Thompson

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